Earth escape

Chapter 2

I looked at the dirty piece of metal carefully. Was it worth collecting? I didn't know.  After giving a quick glance at my surroundings, I noticed there were several other pieces, identical to the first one. Well, I could get a few just in case,...

"Ed!" shouted a familiar voice, a short distance away.

"Yeah?" I shouted back.

"Come down here. I think I've found something interesting."

"What is it?"

"Just come down here and check it out!"

"Ugh, fine."

I jumped down from the rusted, half-buried old schoolbus, and went over to where my best friend Max was.

Max was a guy my age, with dark skin and brown eyes. He was quite tall and had huge feet. He was a pretty nice lad, always willing to help and easy to chat to. We had known each other for years, since the SA had put us into the same group, when we were only six years old. 

I found him round the corner, staring at an object.

"So, what is it?" I asked.

"Look" he answered "It's a shopping trolley" he said, pointing at strange-looking metal kart, deep enough to fit plenty of stuff.

"A shopping what?" I asked, puzzled.

"Shopping trolley. It was used years ago to carry the items you bought in a supermaket."

"Oh, I do know what a supermarket was. But it's obviously not here anymore" I said looking around.

"Of course it's not! It's in ruins. But anyway, what I was thinking was that we can use this trolley and  carry the materials in it, and get more work done!"

"Okay. It doesn't seem like a bad plan, I suppose."

"Right. So, here's all the wood I've got so far" he said, loading it into the trolley. And when he finished, he said "There's still space for your wood! Where is it, by the way?"

He looked around, but couldn't see any.

"Oh, eeh my wood?" I said "Well, it's eeh... should be over there, but eeh well,...

"Oh, great one Ed! You haven't got any wood. What have you been doing all this time? You've been up near that bus for half an hour!"

"Ugh, we don't need wood. We all know that collecting metal is much more important, for building the ship!"

"Yes, but Zeddin has given orders that this week, we are collecting wood, for fires at night and for protection against alien attacks! We will be collecting metal next week!"

"Oh well, then forget the pieces of metal I have been inspecting for the last half hour!"

"Yes, forget them. Now help me get a little more wood before someone sees that you haven't been working!"

Suddenly, Max's walkie-talkie buzzed to life. There was a message from Squad C.

"How's it going, Squad L? I hope you're finishing up there, because it's getting late, and we should be heading towards the camp by now. We and Squad D are already on our way. See you there." 

"Yes, Squad C. We're just getting the last pieces and then we'll be making our way back, too. See ya" said Max into the walkie-talkie.

Ten minutes later, me and Max, along with the rest of squad L (eighteen other people) were walking at a steady pace towards the camp, about two hours away. Max was pushing at the trolley, with all the wood inside. Every few minutes or so someone would walk over to him and congratulate on finding it, assuring him that it would be a great help. The only problem were the wheels, because they were so small they kept getting jammed our stuck in the trash-covered, uneven ground. I asked him what he would do about it and he said: 

"Yeah, once we get back to the camp I'll have to replace them with a bigger and sturdier set of wheels, though it shouldn't be too hard."

I noticed that the two of us were starting to fall behind, as Tina, Bert, Josh and all the others marched on. The next time Max stopped to clean the trolley wheels, I looked around.

I didn't see anything special, only mountains after mountains of trash all around us. Every few minutes we would find crumbled pieces of what used to be a building, but apart from that, there wasn't much else to look at. We seemed to be passing through the outskirts of a destroyed old city. I heard Margo say that it had once been called San Antonio.There must have been a battle there years ago, because now the city was uninhabited and absolutely wrecked.

I suddenly noticed the sun was setting, and shadows started to creep out. It was getting late, so I sighed and continued my journey.